She Never Stops Talking
by Michmak
Summary: Hermione never stops talking, which is something Snape comes to appreciate.


She Never Stops Talking

Author: Michmak

Disclaimer: not mine

A/N: just playing around a little bit, trying something different with my writing than how I would normally approach a story. The germ for this little scribbling stems from a thought I had the other day – that for a man like Snape, talking in bed during sex would probably be more intimate than the actual act itself. He's so very much in control of himself that the thought of him being a vocal person in bed seems to me to be a bit of a distortion of his character – unless he felt really comfortable with the person he was with. I mean, talking during sex is pretty revealing – you can't control what you say in the heat of the moment. I would think a man like Snape would prefer not to talk at all then to say anything that would be considered revealing. I may be off my rocker here, but there you have it.

By the way, the very little bit of plot that's in here calls for a high suspension of disbelief. I realize this, and am warning you in advance. It works for what I wanted to do, which was play with my style a little bit and try something new. I don't know whether I succeeded in this or not, but I must admit I rather like this little one-shot. BTW, as the fabulous Rissa is currently betaing the next two chapters of Heart with No Companion, she has not betaed this, although she did offer a couple of suggestions which I gladly utilized. Also, big thanks to Nakhash Mekashefah for her stellar aid - she corrected a lot of little grammatical and punctuation errors I missed, and even kindly informed me that just because something may be a word in French, it does not necessarily mean anything in English. LOL. Thanks, Nakhash!

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She never stops talking, not even in bed. He finds it highly erotic, the way her honey-voice instructs him as they are making love. 'Oh, perfect,' she will say, or, 'just a little higher…right there…' and gasp, and sigh his name.

The fact that he listens to her and does as she asks just shows him how far gone he is. No one but he truly understands just how well she has him wrapped around her little finger.

When their relationship was new and in its infancy, the gossip surrounding the two of them was intense. They even made the _Daily Prophet_ on several occasions. It seemed no one could comprehend why they would choose to be together. Or, if he were being totally honest with himself, no one could understand what she was doing with him. Even though the war was long over and Voldemort was gone; even though his actions as a spy for the Order had long ago come to light and he had been exonerated by the Wizengamot; he was still not trusted by the majority of the Wizarding world.

He knew many still would prefer to see him in Azkaban, or better yet, dead for the things he had done as a double agent to keep himself free of suspicion. He couldn't blame them, either. He had always found it odd that he had basically been given a free pass for the atrocities he had known about – and, in some cases been party to – while working for the Order.

When he had told Hermione this, she had merely looked at him. 'That's just silly,' she'd retorted, 'without you, we wouldn't have won. The insider knowledge you provided us with was invaluable. It's easy for people to point fingers when they did nothing for either side during the war. If you had played your hand too early, you would have been dead and the Order would have been working blind! You were like our very own Enigma machine!'

When he merely cocked an eyebrow at that, she had shrugged, 'Muggle history, WWI…it's a long story.'

Her stalwart defense of him, even when she defended him against himself, almost made him smile. Her hair bristled when she was angry or outraged, making her look like an angry lioness defending her cub. The irony was, he was the cub – and she was incensed on his behalf more so than he ever was.

'How can they say things like that to you?' she had demanded, her face flushed angrily even as her eyes sparkled with tears. 'You're a hero!'

'I'm a bastard, Hermione,' he'd replied. 'I don't know why you're the only one who doesn't seem to understand that.'

She had merely shaken her head at him, wrapped her arms around him and pulled him to her. 'You are not a bastard – you're the bravest man I've ever met. And you're brilliant. They're all idiots, the lot of them. And you should know better than to believe them!'

He never agreed with her on that, but he had learned long ago not to argue her point. If she wanted to think he was misunderstood, that was fine by him. In his mind, the only one who misunderstood him was she. Where he was concerned, her vision was definitely myopic.

Over time, she convinced him that she did, indeed, love him. She must, the way she let him touch her; hold her; spend himself inside her. When this – whatever it was between them – first started, he had been sure he was one of her pet causes, like SPEW. She had presented herself at his classroom a few months after the final battle, announced her plans to become his apprentice, and – despite his vociferous protests – had never really left.

Nothing he could say or do had managed to scare her off and, despite his threats, he never did get around to hexing her. He eventually became used to seeing her, sitting in the corner making notes while he taught his classes, or preparing ingredients for him when she saw his stores were low. Her incessant chatter eventually became the background the rest of his day seemed to revolve around and, even though he would scowl at her and pretend to ignore her as she babbled away, the sound of her voice was proof to him that he was no longer so alone. She had been there for almost five weeks before he specifically gave her something to do – namely, brewing some fresh Skele-Gro for Poppy – and the smile on her face had been enough to rival the sun.

His dependency on her presence grew quickly from that moment. He found her help indispensable when marking those essays so utterly horrible he couldn't even bring himself to read them. Her idle chatter had quickly filled the silences of his existence, to the point that, when she wasn't talking, he missed the sound of her voice.

He had never been an effusive man, but with her there to needle him and ask him questions and discuss various items of interest with, he found himself becoming a great conversationalist. She was like sunshine on a cloudy day or marshmallows floating in steaming hot chocolate. He found himself feeling lighter when she was around - pitying himself less; sometimes, he even felt content. She was terrifying.

She had been his apprentice for three months before he finally decided to ask her what she was really up to. He needed to know what she was playing at, why she was wasting her time in his dungeons when she could have the bulk of the Wizarding world worshipping at her feet. His tone had been particularly nasty when he had asked her and he had refused to look at her as he waited for her response.

'Why would I want any of that?' she had replied, 'when all I've ever wanted was to be left alone to learn and spend time with people I care about?'

'Then why don't you go find these people you care about and leave me alone?' he had sneered. 'I'm sure they're wondering where the hell you've disappeared to.'

He had been beyond shocked when she had retorted, gently, 'Harry and Ron know where to find me if they need to. Besides, I wasn't talking about them, I was talking about you.'

To say she had surprised him with this little nugget of information would have been an understatement – he had stood there looking at her, absolutely befuddled, before he had scowled at her. 'I assure you, Miss Granger, I don't appreciate your idea of a joke.'

She had cocked an eyebrow at him with a style eerily reminiscent of his own, before sidling up to him and whispering, 'I'm not joking,' and pressing her lips to his in a kiss so searingly innocent and highly erotic at the same time, he had almost spontaneously combusted. 'I would never lie to you.'

They had become lovers fairly shortly after that. It just wasn't in him to deny himself something so freely offered, even though he suspected it might hurt him in the end. The first time she had taken him into her body, he had been careful to hold himself back – to see to her needs first, before allowing himself the release he craved.

When she had been sighing his name, or whispering deliciously in his ear, he had maintained his silence and some semblance of control. He was afraid to show her how much he really needed her, afraid that the minute he opened his mouth and groaned her name that she would know all his secrets and use them against him. She always initiated their encounters, but he never turned her away.

Afterwards, when his body was drained of tension and feeling wonderfully lax, she would cradle him against her bosom and stroke his hair and his back. Her fingers would dance in patterns over his pale skin and her whispered words of pleasure, or her sleepy discourse on whatever they had been working on earlier that day, would wrap him in a blanket of intimacy he was always loathe to leave. She was rapidly becoming as essential to his being as the air around him.

Slowly, she dragged him out of his self-exile, getting him to take her to Hogsmeade for a butterbeer or a jaunt to Diagon Alley to look for rare potions ingredients. People always recognized them, of course, and would stop and stare. Some were even so gauche as to point at them and exclaim to each other – loudly – that he must have given her a potion to bind her to him so fiercely, for she never left his side when they went out. She would always tuck her hand in the crook of his arm and squeeze him just above the elbow when anyone said something rude, turning the full force of her glare on them before looking up at him and smiling widely. Her conversation would become more vivacious, her voice rising in cadence to drown out the venomous remarks of those around them. It became easier for him to go places when she was there – he found he preferred listening to her incessant chattering over the deadly silences or malicious remarks that always seemed to follow him wherever he went.

He couldn't remember when she had moved into his rooms, but he had decided to stop questioning his good fortune in having her – for however long it lasted. Just last week, when she had been reading a book of his, sitting in his favorite armchair and swinging her feet over the stuffed side, he had actually kissed her as he had walked by.

When she hadn't immediately protested his boldness, he had repeated the gesture the next day, only this time he caught her just exiting their bathroom and had pushed her against the wall and ravished her mouth until they were both breathless. When he had finally managed to pull away from her sweet lips, she had smiled at him and led him to their bed, where they had spent an enjoyable Saturday morning missing breakfast in the Great Hall.

He had come to know her in a way he doesn't know anyone else. She can say his name a million ways - 'Severus' - and each way is merely a different version of 'I love you.' She tells him this too, of course, 'I love you,' and he finds he doesn't flinch, when she says it, anymore.

Right now, this very instant, her voice is hitching in that sweet little way of hers, gasping as he fills her, sighing with every slide of his body into hers. Her arms are around him, her hands sliding from his buttocks to his shoulders and back again, alternately squeezing and scratching him as their rhythm takes over. He can feel her heels, pressing into the top halves of his calves as she lifts her pelvis to meet his thrusts. His hands are fisted in her hair, those glorious curls wrapping around his fingers like ribbons. Her head is arched back and she is gibbering his name now – 'Severus, Severus, Severus…' Her voice coats him like lava, so incredibly hot that he feels his body burning from the inside out. 'Tell me,' she's begging him, 'give me your voice; I need to hear you, Severus….'

He can feel his balls tighten with each stroke, his throat aching with all the pent up words he's been longing to tell her – how he loves her too, and he's so thankful she's there. That the feel of her, tight and hot and wet around him is heaven; that her voice is a balm and an irritant, alternately soothing and inflaming him.

The pressure is mounting and her soft cries are urging him onwards. He wants to tell her she has taken a broken man and somehow, against all logic, made him whole – that the very essence of her completes him in a way more elemental than the strongest of magicks. She has become his very heart and soul…

Instead, all he manages to say as he explodes inside her is her name: 'Hermione.'

He can tell by the way she shudders around him and kisses his neck, her eyes bright with tears, that she has heard him – and understood.


End file.
